The past century of business decisions have been made and defended by numbers such as net present value, rate of return and payback periods, competitive analysis, customer surveys, variable unit costing, cost of capital, and total shareholder return. and the list could go on. Where does intuition fit in all that data?

Yet, in a study by Harvard's Jagdish Parikh of 13,000 executives, they indicated that they relied on both left-brain analytical skills and right-brain intuitive feelings equally, but they credited 80% of their success to right-brain intuition. Read the rest of this article

Matthew Waletzke, a "building biology" consultant, charges $375 for an-in home evaluation for potential health hazards, which takes about three hours and includes a written report and detox prescription.

"My goal is to identify the physical stressors in your home," he told me. "The idea is that the new technologies, all the crazy foods, the chemicals in the products we use – BPA plastics and other things – are stressors on the body. You can't control what's outside your home. But inside, you can control what's called the total body burden of these stressors, identify the ones you come in contact with on a daily basis, and then reduce, eliminate or avoid them." Read the rest of this article

Dear EarthTalk: What's being done to clean up hog farming operations in places like Iowa and North Carolina and others where the industry is quite large? I've heard horrific stories about man-made "lagoons" of animal waste spilling into and fouling rivers and groundwater and the like.
– John Schmid, Fremont, California

Hog farming has always been a messy business, but surging demand for pork in recent years has exacerbated an already foul problem: dealing with the continual production of the bodily waste of thousands of animals. Pigs are kept in tight quarters and their waste is channeled into huge open-air lagoon pits and sprayfields. The lagoons can rupture during heavy rains, unleashing a torrent of bacteria- and virus-laden feces and urine into nearby groundwater, lakes and streams. Likewise, sprayfields, where some farmers discard animal waste by spraying it over otherwise unused land, can pollute surrounding waterways and contaminate drinking water. Another side effect is air pollution: The lagoons and sprayfields emit methane (a leading greenhouse gas) and ammonia (a respiratory irritant) into the atmosphere, the foul odors sullying the air quality — and neighbors' quality of life — for miles around.

On hog farms, pigs are kept in tight quarters and their
waste is channeled into huge open-air lagoon pits like
the one shown here at a Smithfield Foods operation in
Jones County North Carolina on the Trent River. These
lagoons can rupture during heavy rains, unleashing a
torrent of bacteria- and virus-laden feces and urine
into nearby groundwater, lakes and streams.
Rick Dove (www.doveimaging.com)

The problem has been especially bad in North Carolina, where the number of hogs raised has gone up fourfold in the last two decades — hog farmers there now raise and slaughter some 10 million hogs a year. In 1995, a hog waste lagoon overflow at Ocean View Farms in North Carolina sent 20 million gallons of hog waste into the New River, causing massive fish kills and contaminating drinking water in several neighboring communities. And the torrential rains and flooding that accompanied 1999's Hurricane Floyd wreaked havoc on hog farm waste lagoons and surrounding ecosystems across North Carolina. Read the rest of this entry »

Nearly all of the herbal dietary supplements tested in a Congressional investigation contained trace amounts of lead and other contaminants, and some supplement sellers made illegal claims that their products can cure cancer and other diseases, investigators found.

The levels of heavy metals – including mercury, cadmium and arsenic – did not exceed thresholds considered dangerous, the investigators found. However, 16 of the 40 supplements tested contained pesticide residues that appeared to exceed legal limits, the investigators found. In some cases, the government has not set allowable levels of these pesticides because of a paucity of scientific research. Read the rest of this article

Dr. Karen Mustian of the University of Rochester Medical Center decided to put a favorite practice of cancer survivors — yoga — to the test in helping patients deal with the side effects of treatment. In a paper she will present at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting in June, Mustian designed a standardized program based on hatha yoga — a slow-moving form of the discipline — and tested its effect on improving the quality of life for cancer survivors.

Called YOCAS, the four-week program involved sessions of hatha and restorative yoga twice a week for 75 minutes each, in combination with breathing exercises and meditation. Among the 410 participants, who were divided into yoga and traditional follow-up care groups, those practicing yoga recorded nearly double the improvement in sleep quality and reduction of fatigue compared to those not practicing yoga. They also reported better quality of life overall, Mustian says. "And the yoga group had all of these benefits while reducing their use of sleep medication," she says. Read the rest of this article

For Gary Oppenheimer, 2007 was a year of plenty.

His backyard garden produced a bountiful harvest with a surplus of spaghetti squash, melons, pumpkins, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers for his family. At the end of the season, Oppenheimer had 40 pounds of excess fresh produce — and nowhere to take it. Read the rest of this article

Judging from all of the yogurt and laxative ads on TV, lots of people have their minds squarely lodged on their digestive tracts. Concerns about colon health have definitely been a boon for the alternative medicine industry. Herbalists, naturopaths and other alternative practitioners often claim that they can improve a person's overall health, mood and energy levels simply by cleaning and detoxifying the colon.

People who don't want to hire a professional have lots of options for a do-it-yourself colon cleaning. NuAge Colon Cleanse from NuAge Labs is one of many over-the-counter supplements that claim to be up to the task. The NuAge website says that the product contains "muciligenic fibers," but it doesn't provide any other information about ingredients or directions for use. (NuAge Labs did not respond to requests for information.) According to the site, a month's supply costs a little less than $90. Read the rest of this article

Her children are 21 and 16 years old, but they still cry through the night, tossing and turning in pain, sucking their thumbs for comfort.

Tran Thi Gai, who rarely gets any sleep herself, sings them a mournful lullaby. "Can you feel my love for you? Can you feel my sorrow for you? Please don't cry."

Gai's children — both with twisted limbs and confined to wheelchairs — were born in a village that was drenched with Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. She believes their health problems were caused by dioxin, a highly toxic chemical in the herbicide, which U.S. troops used to strip communist forces of ground cover and food.

Thirty-five years after the end of the Vietnam War, its most contentious remaining legacy is Agent Orange. Eighty-two percent of Vietnamese surveyed in a recent Associated Press-GfK Poll said the United States should be doing more to help people suffering from illnesses associated with the herbicide, including children born with birth defects. Read the rest of this article

Oiled Brown Pelican, May 20, 2010 at Fort Jackson, Louisiana Oiled Wildlife Center.

The dire impact of the massive Gulf spill was apparent Sunday on oil-soaked islands where pelicans nest as several of the birds splashed in the water and preened themselves, apparently trying to clean crude from their feet and wings.

Pelican eggs were glazed with rust-colored gunk in the bird colony, with thick globs floating on top of the water. Nests sat precariously close the mess in mangrove trees. As oil crept farther into the delicate wetlands in Barataria Bay off Louisiana, BP officials said Sunday that one of their efforts to slow the leak wasn't working as effectively as before. Read the rest of this article

Eating 20 g (0.755 oz) of specially developed chocolate packed with antioxidants, or flavanols, each day may help prevent wrinkles and make skin more radiant by boosting elasticity and improving hydration, studies carried out by Barry Callebaut showed.

Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the nutritional value of what they eat, and Barry Callebaut's claims come as food giants such as Nestle and Danone also push into the healthy eating arena. Read the rest of this article